Basil Gill

(1877-1955) Basil Gill’s first stage appearance was in Wilson Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross. After touring in Australia and the United States, he had his chance to play Shakespeare when he joined Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree‘s company in 1903. He stayed with Tree until 1907, and during those years he played in Richard II, Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Ferdinand in The Tempest, Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, Horatio in Hamlet, Brutus in Julius Caesar, Orsino inRead more

Sir Francis Benson

(1858-1939) While at New College, Oxford, Benson produced Agamemnon, the first play to be performed there in the original Greek. In 1882, he made his first professional appearance at the Lyceum Theatre, London—then under the management of Sir Henry Irving—playing the role of Paris in Romeo & Juliet. The next year, he formed a company of his own. In 1886 he married Gertrude Constance Featherstonhaugh (1860–1946), who acted in his company and played leading parts with him. Benson continued toRead more

Henry Ainley

(1879-1945) Henry Ainley was born in Leeds on August 21, 1879. He acted in literally hundreds of productions, but he began his career as an amateur. He joined Frank Benson‘s company and made his debut as a messenger in Macbeth. He later played with Herbert Beerbohm Tree‘s company as well. He played major parts in many Shakespeare plays, beginning with Henry V in 1900 and ending with As You Like it in 1936. He played Hamlet in 1930 at the Haymarket Theatre,Read more

How to Use this Website

ACCESS: From your keyboard, you can press TAB to navigate through the site, the content, and the menus. HOME PAGE: On our new home page, you’ll see a set of square image portfolios. These are meant to be brief topical introductions to the content across the site, and to the collection as a whole. You can access various aspects of the collection through these visual portfolios, or you can access the collection through the above menu tab, “The Postcards.” To returnRead more

Copyright

Intellectual Property, Permissions, & Copyright Information We welcome your interest in including our work in your research. If you wish to view the postcard images up close, or use them in some other way not mentioned here, please begin by contacting us using the contact form on this site. The physical postcard collection is owned by Dr. Harry Rusche and Emory University Libraries. Shakespeare & the Players, hosted by Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, invites users and researchers to use imagesRead more

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree

(1853-1917) Born in 1853, Tree’s real name was Herbert Draper Beerbohm. He assumed his famous stage name in the 1870s. After a string of performances, he joined Frank Benson’s company in 1886, where he played Iago before going on to London and the Haymarket Theatre where he eventually became the manager. “He elevated the Haymarket’s status as a Shakespearian playhouse, and his productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor (1889), Hamlet (1892), and Henry IV, Part 1 (1896) earned himRead more

Robert B. Mantell

(1854-1928) Mantell was born in Scotland and first appeared on stage in Belfast, Northern Ireland; for a time he used the stage name Robert Hudson, but he reassumed his name Mantell after he joined the company of Helena Modjeska in 1878 and came to the United States. His first professional appearance was at the Theatre Royal in Rockdale in 1876. His first role with Dame Modjeska was as Tybalt in Hamlet at the Leyland Opera House in Albany, New York. HeRead more

Twelfth Night, or What You Will

For still we prove much in our vows, but little in our love. (2.4) Twelfth Night—an allusion to the night of festivity preceding the Christian celebration of the Epiphany—combines love, confusion, mistaken identities, and joyful discovery. After the twins Sebastian and Viola survive a shipwreck, neither knows that the other is alive. Viola goes into service with Count Orsino of Illyria, disguised as a young man, “Cesario.” Orsino sends Cesario to woo the Lady Olivia on his behalf, but OliviaRead more